Finding the Key Outtake
by eibbil
Summary: Alice's vision of Bella's return to Forks


A/N: Sorry, it's not a new chapter. Not yet. That's in beta right now and should hopefully post tomorrow or Saturday night.

In the meantime, this is an outtake from Finding the Key...Alice's vision of Bella coming back and Edward's reaction to it.

It's unbeta'd, so any mistakes are mine.

Hope you enjoy it!

*~*~*~*~*

400 days.

It wasn't so very long, not in the grand total of my life, both living and immortal. But I'd felt every second of the last four hundred like pricks of needles just under my skin. Every rise of the sun marked off one more day of my private hell and led me into another.

Dante's nine circles were a stroll along the beach in comparison.

If there was one breath of cool air to temper the endless agony, it was that Bella wasn't trapped here with me. She was living her life, happily free of the danger I'd dropped at her feet the moment I'd given in to my selfishness.

She was free. Unencumbered. And about to enter the next phase of her human life, college, marriage, family. It was what I always wanted for her.

The small sapling I'd been holding snapped in two. If I didn't learn to control my temper, I was going to be responsible for single-handedly deforesting the Olympic Peninsula.

"So which is it, then," Alice asked, walking up and removing the remnants of the tree from my hand, "hunting or wallowing?"

"Hunting," I grunted in response.

"Really? Because last I checked, the animals don't usually wander up to you and expose their throats. A _little_ effort is required on your part."

"Hysterical, Alice. Really."

But I pushed myself off the rock anyway and walked with her towards the clearing.

"You know, Edward…."

I kept walking when she paused. But when the silence stretched out, I turned to look at her, surprised to see she was no longer beside me. Alice had stopped moving, her eyes unfocused and staring into the ether that were her visions.

I didn't look into her mind as she focused on her vision, because the future held nothing of interest to me anymore. I just waited until her eyes and mind came back to the present. I was about to continue our walk to the clearing when I heard it.

Alice was reciting the Cyrillic alphabet. Backward. Then forward. Then backward.

"What did you see?" I asked finally, never quite having mastered my curiosity.

"Nothing," she smiled back at me, flitting just out of reach. That's when I really saw her face. The self-satisfaction radiating off of it ought to be illegal.

"Alice…." I warned, the end of her name nearly turning into a growl.

"What?" she trilled, her voice nothing but innocence.

I darted to her in one quick motion, making nearly no conscious decision to do so, and landed right in front of her. Whether she saw my move and didn't care or was too busy keeping me from her mind that she _didn't_ see it, I never knew. Regardless, I blocked her path and crossed my arms.

"Honestly, Edward, I don't understand why you're pitching a fit over this, it's not like I tell you every vision I have." She might have had a point if Twinkle Twinkle Little Star wasn't playing through her mind…in Welsh.

"You're working too hard to keep me out, Alice. It's something to do with me and I want to know."

"No. You don't."

I snarled, my hands balling into fists at my sides. "Yes, I do."

"No, you don't," she was practically radiating smug. "You specifically told me you wanted me to stop looking in a certain direction. And before you can jump on me, I didn't look. This came to me strictly on its own."

"This has to do with…," I stopped. Even now just saying her name flayed another inch or two of skin off my body. My body went rigid in shock.

"It's about...," I had to pause, find my voice, "is she all right? Is she hurt?" I was surprised that the voice I found was almost trembling.

Thankfully, Alice was quick to end that torture. "She's not hurt, Edward." Her head cocked to the side and regarded me closely. "Does that mean you want to know?"

I didn't answer right away. A small war had erupted inside my head. The battle raged between a desire to know anything about her and a need to at least try to keep from torturing myself with her memory.

In the end, it wasn't much of a battle and my self-preservation lay battered and defeated. Alice must have seen my acquiescence, because she spoke before I could do more than nod in her direction.

"Bella's coming home."

"She…remembered?" I hated the flood of happiness that filled me at the idea that she'd finally put the pieces of her past together. The pieces of _our_ past. Because that's not what I wanted.

Was it?

"No," Alice contradicted me. "She hasn't. I saw her wandering the town, Edward. The school, her house and the woods surrounding it. Looking confused, lost. She's coming home to find what she's missing."

I didn't move. I couldn't. All this time the memories hadn't returned to her? Then why was she… Of course.

"She always hated unanswered questions," I said, more to myself than to Alice. "Not knowing what had happened while she was here would be like having an itch she couldn't scratch."

Alice paused and raised her small face to mine, frustration carving little dents into her forehead. "No," she contradicted. "She's coming to find you, you idiot," she said at last, slapping my arm.

"No," I said at once. "She just doesn't like questions, that's all. She'll come here and look. If she regains her memory, I'll deal with that. But I'll stay away as I should have last year."

"Oh hell, not this again," Alice sighed and kicked a pine cone across the field. It lodged in the trunk of an older pine. "Are you really going to bang that drum again, Edward? The 'Bella's safer away from me' one? Because honestly, it was tedious the first time around and I'd rather not go through it again."

"Alice," I said, drawing her name out in warning, "you're not to go near her."

"And you were appointed my lord and master when? No, Edward. I loved her too, you know that. Maybe not in the same way, okay definitely not in the same way, but do you really think you're alone in missing her? Because you're not. And if my best friend is coming home, I'm going to do what I can to help her."

I growled at her. "So, what then? You're going to waltz up to her with a 'hi, Bella, remember me? I'm your vampire best friend?' That will go over well."

"Credit me with _some_ tact, Edward."

"It's not about tact, Alice, it's about protecting her. She's safe now. Safe from me, from us, from creatures like James. I intend to keep her that way."

"You really think you can stay away from her?" She shook her head, her spikes quivering with the motion. "You really are a master at lying to yourself."

I didn't consider it lying to myself, it was more a mission. I would do this time what I'd failed at before. It would be easier this time, I vowed, because I knew what the consequences were if I gave in. I _would_ stay away.

Or keep to watching her from a distance – just to be sure she was safe.

Alice was darted off into the woods a second later. I heard laughter trailing after her and knew the source at once. Her vision had changed. But that didn't matter. She'd been wrong before, she was wrong this time, too.

There was no other way.


End file.
